Would love some Advice on Au Pairs

[HoneyPop]

Hi Everyone
Husband left, I am now the devastated single mother of three children 14, 11 and 6. Wonderful kids. Need to go back to work after 10 years of being at home with them. Going back to intensive care nursing which means unsociable hours. How can I make this work? I will need to do a mixture of "Earlys" 0730-1530, "Lates" 1315-2130 and "Nights"2100-0800. I want to keep family life as stable as possible. My eldest is very capable but I feel that it is too much to expect her to take on the childcare for the others. I have been thinking of an Au Pair. I think I will work a max of three shifts a week to start with. A typical week may be E,L,L or E,E,L so really the Au Pair will need to get them up. breakfasted and walk to school. The L shift she will pick them up from school or after club, make tea and do the bath time routine.
What do you think?

Sounds ok.....we have used au pairs in the past when I was doing shift work. They are limited to the amount of hours they should be doing per week and should still have time to study on a language course if they want to.

I still prepared all meals so they just had to re heat....they are notoriously crap at cooking.

Will you be offering them a car? I find they are more amenable if you finance cars, gym membership and college courses.

Mine also wanted to do other part time bar and restaurant work some evenings so that will need to be a consideration.

Many thanks for that.

This sounds like it could all be adding up to a lot more financially!. She would have a lovely ensuite large room, good access to the town (mile) with a bus stop a few minutes walk away, a village shop, post office, great close knit community and good friends so she wouldn't be lonely I don't think.

The other concern is if an Au Pair wants to come to rural Somerset or not!!

We found a community of au pairs that tended to socialise together so it is important to find them early on....the first au pair we had was terribly homesick for a while.

We had a couple of boys too who were fab at playing with DS but reluctant to do any housework!

Find an agency that vets them in their own country too.

Thank you. If anyone can recommend a good agency for Au Pairs I would be grateful.

Really sorry HoneyPop to hear of your situation.. I'm a nurse - work the same shifts as you.. Enjoying my first Friday evening off for a while..

Have hosted au pairs for many years now. Should work out to be a sensible solution for you and I wouldn't worry that you have to provide car & gym etc. We've only had one au pair that ever bothered going to the gym regularly anyway - though some have had the old crash gym-diet periods we all have when they've realised the weight they've gained in the UK!!

We do make a little contribution to English classes - usually paying at the end of each term, and in the past if our au pairs had free classes then we bought a couple of books - grammar and dictionaries etc.

With it being a little more rural then make it sound far more remote than it is. Then when she arrives and finds out it is only a mile she'll be pleasantly surprised..!

I'd really recommend 1st Choice Au Pairs - they go to meet and interview their candidates in their home countries and do the vetting themselves and you can see video intros of each so you can rate their English.

Treeesa thank you so much for your advice. I feel a bit more positive about it now. I will take a look at that agency. Bye

Hey honey,
we have had an au pair for 3 months now and it's working out really well. (Beginners luck I think!) I think this would definately be a good solution for your situation. You do have to be realistic about the 'hidden' costs (food, car insurance etc.) but if you get a good one definately worth their weight in gold! Many of the au pairs in our area do not have the use of a car but there are good bus and train networks so they are not restricted and most go to the same language school so a good way for them to make friends easily.

Good luck - I hope it all works out for you x

to keep your costs down why don't you employ someone local. i am sure there are young people and single people who would fit in with your work pattern. they could stay over if you are working certain shifts and available to work the other shifts as and when needed.
you wouldn't have the language barrier and another person 24/7 in your house. there are a lot of good people who would enjoy this type of work who are looking for employment.
i was a mothers' help a lot of years ago and loved it and the children. i used to go to work on the local bus or cycle there. you wouldn't need to get them a car etc.
i still keep in touch with the children i worked for all those years ago and i had come from an office job to that job and left to go to college so its not like it was a career job for me although it stood me good when i had two children of my own.
good luck with your search

Thank you for such good advice you lovely people. xxx

TBh a major factor in having an au pair is reliability and continuity of childcare. Personally in your situation I wouldn't rely on local, live out childcarers even to keep your costs down.

I think an au pair should be more than capable of doing what you describe but would advise you to stick to older candidates - 20+ - as it would be difficult for an 18yo to be in charge of a 14yo.

If it's a max of 2 dinners she'd be preparing in a week I'd let them live on simple pasta bakes or buy pizza to put in the oven if they're not a great cook.

If you offer around £70 a week in terms of pocket money then go by the costs of having a family of 5 - 2 adults and 3 children - you wouldn't be far wrong.

You don't need to offer a car unless you need her to drive but that needn't be horrendously expensive.

If you did nights would they be in charge overnight? And what are your plans for school holidays? That will affect the kind of au pair you get TBH.